Catalyst with Shayle Kann

• What to make of Trump's deep-sea minerals push

  In April, the Trump administration issued an executive order to accelerate the development of deep-sea minerals — part of its broader push for “energy dominance.” The world’s oceans hold vast, untapped deposits of critical minerals like nickel, copper, manganese, and rare earth elements — all essential to batteries and clean energy technologies. Despite decades of interest, no commercial deep-sea mining project has begun production. The reasons? Regulatory uncertainty, environmental concerns, and the complexity of processing polymetallic nodules. So what does this new executive order actually do? In this episode, Shayle talks to Hans Smith, president and CEO of Ocean Minerals, a company participating in exploration of the Cook Islands. Shayle and Hans cover topics like: What the Trump executive order mandates — and its legal limits The bottleneck of U.S. deep-sea exploration  The controversy about U.S. legal authority over international waters The economics and geopolitics of deep-sea hotspots like the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, Japan, and the Cook Islands The technical challenges of refining polymetallic nodules CapEx, OpEx, and barriers to commercial deployment Resources: Catalyst: Mining the deep sea World Resources Institute: What We Know About Deep-Sea Mining — and What We Don’t Reuters: Trump signs executive order boosting deep-sea mining industry Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a platform enabling solar and storage developers and buyers to save time, reduce risk, and increase profits in their equipment selection process. Anza gives clients access to pricing, technical, and risk data plus tools that they’ve never had access to before. Learn more at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude. Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

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• A former race car engineer on battery safety and supply chains [partner content]

  From his days as an IndyCar race engineer to his current role as chief product officer for a leading storage integrator, Tristan Doherty has always worked at the intersection of high performance and risk management.  Today, he's applying that expertise at LG Energy Solution Vertech to build more resilient, domestically manufactured energy storage systems for America's evolving grid. LG Energy Solution Vertech is the US energy storage division of LG Energy Solution, which has committed $1.4 billion to manufacture batteries in the U.S., creating a hub capable of producing 16.5 gigawatt-hours of energy storage cells annually. This investment is part of the company's long-term strategy to diversify supply chains. "We're on schedule for early next year to be a hundred percent non-Chinese in terms of all of the components and sub-components going into those ESS cells,” says Doherty. This manufacturing strategy is critical in a moment of trade uncertainty. While LG Energy Solution's substantial resources allow it to weather these challenges, smaller players in the supply chain face greater difficulties. "We're seeing projects that are being paused, that are being delayed. We're seeing suppliers that are rethinking their strategy...the goalposts are continually shifting." Beyond manufacturing, LG Energy Solution has transformed its approach to system integration. Rather than simply connecting batteries to the grid, the company now designs comprehensive power solutions with grid needs as the starting point. Doherty describes this as "flipping the script" from an inside-out to an outside-in approach. "The direction of design decisions and the direction of design intent has kind of flipped 180 degrees," he explains. "It's creating much more effective and much more powerful designs." This evolution in design philosophy extends to safety considerations as well. Following incidents like the Moss Landing fire, the industry has increasingly shifted toward containerized solutions that compartmentalize risk. According to Doherty, this approach, combined with other innovations, has contributed to a 97% reduction in energy storage system failure rates. As unprecedented demand growth from data centers, electrification, and manufacturing transforms the grid landscape, Doherty sees energy storage playing a central role.  "We've made immense strides and we've figured out a whole lot of really interesting and fascinating ways of using batteries. But I think there's a whole bunch more to come." This episode was produced in partnership with LG Energy Solution Vertech. LG Energy Solution Vertech is the U.S. energy storage division of LG Energy Solution, here to be your lifetime energy storage partner. Learn more about the company's approach to safety, performance, and its commitment to the U.S. market.

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• Terrawatt Infrastructure’s billion-dollar strategy

  This week, we're bringing you a special episode of The Green Blueprint, a show about the stories behind first-of-a-kind climate projects. In this episode: Terawatt Power's first commercial electric truck charging depot, which opened in April near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. It was a significant milestone for the industry. So how’d Terawatt pull it off? Host Lara Pierpoint talks to Terawatt’s founder Neha Palmer about the financing, offtakes, and market demand for electrified trucks. It’s the kind of deep-dive conversation we love to have here on Catalyst, so we think you’ll enjoy it. In 2021, Neha Palmer co-founced Terrawatt Infrastructure with a bold mission: create the backbone for America's electric trucking revolution. Within its first year, Terrawatt secured a billion-dollar investment. But as the company developed plans for a nationwide charging network, it confronted the daunting challenge of building infrastructure for an electric truck market that barely existed.  High-profile bankruptcies like Nikola Motors cast long shadows over the sector's viability, raising questions about whether heavy-duty transport can truly be electrified. In this episode, Lara talks with Neha about how Terrawatt aims to transform freight transport despite market skepticism. Neha explains Terawatt’s strategic approach to site selection, innovative charging designs for fully-loaded trucks, and the vision for a revolutionary California-to-Texas network. Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a platform enabling solar and storage developers and buyers to save time, reduce risk, and increase profits in their equipment selection process. Anza gives clients access to pricing, technical, and risk data plus tools that they’ve never had access to before. Learn more at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude. Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

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  38:53
• The U.S. nuclear groundswell

  The nuclear renaissance of the 2000s turned out to be something of a mirage. Buoyed by rising fossil gas prices, growing climate awareness, and steady load growth, nuclear seemed poised for a breakout moment. But that momentum stalled. Electricity demand flatlined. The fracking boom sent gas prices plummeting. And Fukushima rattled public confidence in nuclear power. Ultimately, only two new reactors, Vogtle units 3 and 4 in Georgia, reached completion over a decade later. So is this latest wave of nuclear hype any different? In this episode, Shayle talks to Chris Colbert, CEO of Elementl Power, which on Wednesday announced a deal with Google to develop three nuclear projects of at least 600-megawatts each. (Energy Impact Partners, where Shayle is a partner, is an investor in Elementl.) Chris, a former executive at NuScale Power, thinks last year may have marked the start of a nuclear revival: the recommissioning of Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island and Michigan’s Holtec Palisades; Big Tech deals to support small modular reactor development; and the start of construction on TerraPower’s Wyoming reactor, the Western Hemisphere’s first advanced nuclear facility. But until new reactors move beyond one-off projects to serial deployment, nuclear won’t achieve the cost reductions needed for widespread adoption. Chris and Shayle discuss what it will take to turn this groundswell of activity into widespread deployment, covering topics like: Current tailwinds, like load growth and interest from corporate buyers Why corporate buyers may be better positioned than utilities to take on development risks Elementl’s technology-agnostic approach Different nuclear technologies — light water, non-light water, and advanced designs — and Chris’s predictions for when they’ll reach commercialization Why iteration is essential to driving down costs (and why the Google deal involves three separate projects) How regulatory timelines are speeding up The steps of project development with a corporate buyer Chris’s criteria for site selection — and why attracting skilled labor ranks surprisingly high Resources: Latitude Media: Was 2024 really the year of nuclear resurgence? Latitude Media: Is large-scale nuclear poised for a comeback? Catalyst: The cost of nuclear Latitude Media: Trump’s DOE is reupping Biden-era funding for small modular nuclear reactors Latitude Media: Utah bets on a new developer to revive its small modular reactor ambitions Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a platform enabling solar and storage developers and buyers to save time, reduce risk, and increase profits in their equipment selection process. Anza gives clients access to pricing, technical, and risk data plus tools that they’ve never had access to before. Learn more at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude. Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

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  40:27
• Frontier Forum: Unlocking next-generation VPPs

  In the mid-2000s, Ben Brown started his career designing demand response programs that relied on pagers and telephones. Today, as Renew Home's CEO, he's leveraging AI and tens of millions of connected smart devices to help households save energy and create an entirely new approach to grid management. Renew Home is building a new kind of virtual power plant that moves beyond occasional emergency events toward continuous, subtle energy shifts across millions of connected households. "The biggest evolution is connected devices," explains Brown, who previously led energy product development at Google after its acquisition of Nest. During his time at Google Labs working on large language models, Brown also witnessed firsthand the massive energy demands that AI would place on our grid. This realization, combined with his work on smart home technology, led Brown to envision a new approach to virtual power plants – one built on subtle, personalized adjustments across millions of homes rather than occasional disruptive events. “There's actually a lot more value continuously throughout the year, over hundreds of hours where customers can save more money by helping support the grid." With DOE projections showing a 200 gigawatt peak on the US grid by 2030, Renew Home's approach offers a compelling alternative to building new power plants. By focusing on customer control and personalization, they've achieved 75% opt-in rates, while creating a resource that is far cheaper than gas peakers. In this episode, recorded as part of a live Frontier Forum, Stephen Lacey talks with Ben Brown about the next generation of virtual power plants.  How does Renew Home’s approach differ from demand response or battery-based VPPs? And what role can it play in addressing the grid’s urgent needs? This is a partner episode, brought to you by Renew Home. It was recorded live as part of Latitude Media's Frontier Forum series. Watch the full video to hear more details about next-generation VPPs.

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